that god had chosen him to spread the word about jesus, he traveled to antioch, the capital of roman syria. >> antioch has one of the largest jewish communities outside of the jewish homeland-- it's been suggested that maybe something like 40,000 people in this jewish community. so we can... we must imagine a number of different jewish congregations and subsections of the city in and through which paul could have moved and still felt very much at home within the jewish community. >> wherever you have a sufficient number of jews, you would have a jewish community. wherever you have a jewish community, you would have a jewish synagogue. >> narrator: by the fourth century, the synagogue had become a formal place of worship. but in paul's day, especially in the diaspora, it was more of a community center. >> another remarkable feature of the synagogues in the diaspora is not only that they attracted large crowds of people, but among these crowds will have been gentiles. there is no barrier between jews and gentiles, and gentiles found the jewish synagogues-- and the jews themselves, apparently